The Closer: Slow starters
|  | | Geoff Jenkins, the only Brewer to hit over .300, prevented this ball from becoming a County Stadium souvenir. |
Good things come to a team that waits. Like a new stadium. Like wins. Case in point: The Brewers took a major league-high 23 wins in their final at-bat. But they still finished 73-89, third in the NL Central, 22 games
behind St. Louis. One reason fast finishes were required was the team didn't know how to start.
Leadoff man Marquis Grissom's on-base percentage (.288) was lower than that of, say, San Diego pitcher Woody Williams (.308). The Brewers' No. 1 priority in the offseason is finding a leadoff man. With The Closer, ESPN.com wraps up the season of a team abandoning County Stadium.
Miller exhibitions set for late March
The Brewers will open Miller Park
with exhibitions against the White Sox and Red Sox
on March 30-31.
The Brewers will face their former AL Central rival Chicago the
night of March 30, one week before they open the regular season at
home. The Brewers play the Red Sox the following afternoon.
Fans can buy tickets for the exhibition games beginning Feb. 3.
Farewell to non-lyrical little bandbox
Milwaukee loses a precious bit of its baseball heritage Thursday that is nearly as old as Bob Uecker's "I Must Be in the Front Rooooowww" routine.
No one writes lyrical essays about County Stadium. Ken Burns will never film a nine-night history of Bernie Brewer. Doris Kearns Goodwin will never write a loving memoir about the Chicken Dance and the Sausage Race. County Stadium's charms are as difficult to define as the secret ingredients to its bratwurst sauce.
Complete Jim Caple column
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